We all know SMEs constitute one of the pillars of the Indian economy. However, it is also a fact that financial distress rate amongst the SMEs is alarming and this is despite the Government doing its best to help SMEs in every possible manner. Such SMEs can now hope to come out of such difficult phase courtesy IBC 2016.. Being an ex-banker, I am aware about the ground level realities and will be able to pin point the reasons for distress as also the solutions needed. However—at the same time—I must caution against blind reliance on the material provided through this website because each SME will have a unique set of problems and an in depth—and separate– study is needed to diagnose the problem. Lastly this is an educational website and no income of any sort is being contemplated.

The IBC provides for a time-bound resolution within 180 days, and has a provision to extend the deadline by another 90-days.

The BJP claimed on its Twitter account on Saturday that the “Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code (IBC), 2016 has resulted in recovery of Rs 4 lakh crore out of staggering Rs 9 lakh crore of NPAs or bad loans given to the corporates under UPA government.”

As against this claim, the Reserve Bank of India’s latest data shows that the public sector banks could recover a total of only Rs 15,786 crore in the fiscal year 2016-17 and 2017-18 till December 31 through all recovery channels, including IBC.Banks started referring bad loans cases for resolution under the IBC since January 2017.

In fact, in the last four fiscal years — 2014-15, 2015-16, 2016-17 and 2017-18 till December 31 — all 21 public sector banks in aggregate could recover only Rs 29,343 crore out of Rs 2.72 lakh crore of bad loans that were written off by the PSBs, as per the RBI data. During this four year period, public sector banks recorded a recovery rate of 10.77 per cent. This RBI data was presented by Minister of State for Finance Shiv Pratap Shukla in response to a query in Rajya Sabha on March 27. The data shows that more than 89 per cent of the non performing assets (NPA) written off by state-owned banks could not be recovered during the period.

While the 12 large NPA cases are at various stages of resolution at benches of the National Company Law Tribunals (NCLT), the Economic Survey 2017-18 released in January had analysed the first ten cases for which resolution plans were approved under the IBC between August and December 2017. The IBC provides for a time-bound resolution within 180 days, and has a provision to extend the deadline by another 90-days.

Bold structural reforms by Prime Minister Narendra Modi government is leading to recovery of indiscriminate bad loans given to corporates under the UPA government, the BJP said in the tweet on its official Twitter handle @BJP4India on Saturday. It was retweeted by BJP Odisha and some other party members. The tweet has subsequently been deleted. When asked why this particular tweet was deleted, BJP’s head of IT cell Amit Malviya said he was not aware of this. “I am not in the loop on this,” he said.

As per the Economic Survey 2017-18, in the first ten cases, creditors were able to recover 33.53 per cent of total outstanding from the defaulting borrowers. It showed that the creditors could recover Rs 1,854.40 crore out of the claims of Rs 5,530.30 crore from companies including Synergies Doorey Automotive, Shree Metalik, Kamineni Steel & Power India, Shirdi Industries, among others.

The other 12 large cases undergoing resolution under NCLT involve claims worth over Rs 3.20 lakh crore. Some of the cases which are close to resolution under the IBC include Bhushan Steel, Essar Steel, Monnet Ispat and Energy, Binani Cement and Jaypee Infratech. It is not immediately clear how much money will the banks be able to recover in these large cases.

With the RBI now pruning the avenues for restructuring stressed accounts and aligning NPA resolution with the IBC, the Code is emerging as the main source of recovery for the banking sector. The RBI requires banks to implement a resolution plan within 180 days and in case of non-implementation, lenders are required to file an insolvency application.